A suicide bomber in a bus killed one member of Nigeria’s civilian
joint task force (JTF) at the main checkpoint on the outskirts of the
northeastern city of Maiduguri on Monday, military and JTF sources said.
There
was no immediate claim for the attack but it bore the hallmarks of
Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Maiduguri, the state capital of
Borno, is the birthplace of the jihadi sect.
A JTF member at the
scene said that after passengers had left the bus, the driver drove
forward to another inspection point at the Njimtilo checkpoint in the
southwest of the city where he detonated the bomb. Three civilians were
injured.
Since President Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration at the
end of May, there has been a sharp rise in the number of raids and
bombings across the country, especially in Borno. Attacks in
neighbouring Chad, including on the capital N’Djamena, have also been on
the rise.
Buhari and his regional allies are setting up the
headquarters of a multinational joint task force in Chad’s capital
dedicated to dealing with the six-year old insurgency. Chadian troops
played a major role in pushing the group out of key Nigerian towns
earlier this year.
According to monitoring by the SITE
Intelligence Group, Boko Haram claimed responsibility on a Twitter feed
for suicide bombings on the police headquarters in Chad’s capital in
June and a recent such attack in Maiduguri.
Earlier this year, it
pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, which controls territory in
Syria and Iraq and is extending its influence in North Africa and Yemen.
Source: PM News

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